


it's such a strange emotion, standing there beside it

by bonelessbluemilk, theweeklyflip



Series: punk supernaturals and monsters au [2]
Category: Punk Rock RPF, The Clash
Genre: Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:02:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24401743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonelessbluemilk/pseuds/bonelessbluemilk, https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweeklyflip/pseuds/theweeklyflip
Summary: Supernaturals make up a very small percent of the population. A percent that had been divided, labelled, demonized, and put down for years.There's only so long something like that can go on before people begin to get sick of it.
Series: punk supernaturals and monsters au [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762042
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, the public asked and I delivered  
> This probably wasnt what was to be expected from this AU, but ive been resting on it for a while and I think this is the most engaging outcome in terms of storyline  
> The beginning of this was written slowly over a few days, and then the rest of it finished all in one night on a Monster-Energy-three-AM buzz, so if there's any inconsistentcy in writing style thats why  
> Also, unrelated but THANK U GUYS SO MUCH FOR ALL THE POSITIVE SUPPORT MY FIRST ONESHOT FOR THIS AU GOT!! ur all incredibly sweet and the reason why this new story exists :,)  
> Eric and Joe are both werewolves. Supe is slang for supernatural entity.  
> FYI, Eric is Jello. I don't think nicknames are going to be very prevalent in this story so I just wanted to note so no confusion arose (:  
> As always, this is fiction. I don't know or didn't know any of the people depicted in this story. This is something that I made up and put out there for the world to see, take my interpretations of these people as characters with a grain of salt.  
> Title is from Moonlight on the River by Mac DeMarco.

"You look like shit, my friend."  
"Thanks, mate," Joe muttered, plopping down across from Eric. It was five in the goddamned morning, almost directly after a moon. He didn't know what Eric was expecting or if he just felt like announcing it.  
A waitress sauntered over. Eric politely waved her off with a small smile. "You're bleeding," Joe commented.  
Eric ran his index and middle finger over his left brow and looked at the wine-coloured takeaway staining them, disinterested.  
"Rough night?"  
"Oh, you know it always is. And you? I'm assuming your friend stitched you up earlier."  
Joe cringed. Eric had always been more casual about his..."condition" than he was. Regardless, the way he easily threw around talk of suspicious injuries made Joe a bit uncomfortable. It was yet another testament to how careless Eric could be.  
"Yeah, he did," Joe grunted. "What about you? You don't look very torn up."  
"Oh, Ray handcuffed me to the radiator again. Said he was 'sick of me mauling chickens' and the like." Eric chuckled. Joe didn't find that hard to believe. Eric was mostly harmless if a bit eccentric, but the two had met during a moon before. The outcome was ugly.  
Joe was big and a bit foul-tempered, but he could conceivably pass for the average wolf. Sometimes, and the occurrence was welcome, he could even pass for a large dog. On the other hand, Eric was more feral. Had more mange about him. Not quite the frothing, child-eating monster Weres were made out to be, but...well.  
"Whatever." Eric hummed, drumming his fingers on the table, bringing Joe back from thought. "Didn't really meet for small talk, did we?"  
Joe sighed. "We didn't. What's the story?"  
Eric's smile faded and he looked down at his coffee cup. "Well, word's been brewing that things are beginning to get more...tense, I guess. Supposedly, there's a new breed of cop to take on people like us. They're armed to the teeth and are quite unfriendly."  
Joe's brow furrowed. "Searching houses and things?"  
Eric shook his head. "No, no, the bastards wouldn't dare. Vicious got 'em on his punk ass again."  
"Well, that's nothing new. He's a moron."  
Eric clicked his tongue. "Not saying you're wrong, but what we did gather from that case is that they're willing to bring out the big guns as soon as a supe steps outta line."  
"Did Vicious get his stupid head blown off?"  
"Nah, just barely missed. He assaulted some fucko, but since he wasn't out of the Cage and it was another supe, it didn't count."  
The Cage. The term made Joe shudder. it reminded him, as it did for all supes, they were out in the open, away from the quote-unquote "envelope of safety" that powers outside their control decided they should have set aside for them. Even though the Cage wasn't a true cage- more of a theoretical one than a physical- it contained the supes from the rest of the world, leaving them to maul each other on their own. Any supe out of the Cage could be arrested- or worse- without warning. In the Cage, they had no rights except the decency some had for each other. Everywhere else, supes had even less. Joe knew the Cage was awful, but there was a sense of familiarity to it. Joe was born in a similar situation, raised in one. Heinous though it was, he felt safe within it. Out here, he was, legally and culturally, nothing.  
"Damnit," Joe said, feeling hollow. "A whole force for supes?"  
Eric nodded grimly. "My thoughts exactly. Next thing you know they're gonna start coming to people's doors and putting a hole in the head of the first supe they find, no question."  
Joe thought for a moment that Eric was going to spit, but he just kept his hands around his coffee cup, looking venomous.  
Joe was trying to think of something to say, but couldn't come up with a single word of consolation that would mean anything now. He knew things were bad- hell, they had never been good- but he didn't think they were this bad.  
With nothing else to discuss and both quite mellowed by the discussion, Eric fumbled a five-dollar bill under the now empty mug and the two went outside, the sun slowly creeping higher up on the horizon. Eric clapped Joe on the shoulder after a few moments of the two looking at the sky in silence.  
"Take care of your boys," he said gently, and Joe nodded, muttering a "you too".  
Once Eric departed, Joe lit up a cigarette and sighed, keeping his head low as he started towards home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for how long this took.  
> But, that being said, we're back, and hopefully uploading consistently now.   
> Hope you enjoy the chapter, and that you're not too fed up with the wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, in an attempt to avoid stage names, Ray is Captain Sensible.  
> As for characters that make cameos from other bands, as opposed to adding their band to the fandom list (because if I did we would be here all day), I'm just going to hope they fall under the "Punk Rock RPF" tag.

Joe ambled into the forest, down the well-trodden path, and let out an audible sigh of relief. After almost an hour of walking through the sleepy streets so early in the morning, avoiding general eye contact, and listening for cops- or worse: middle-aged women with kids who'd accuse him of looking "sketchy"- Joe was glad to be home.   
He walked up the small porch of the little shack-like home, toeing off his boots and kicking them to the side. He swung open the aluminum door and walked in, letting it shut behind him. The shock absorber hissed as a wave of humid air entered the kitchen.   
Mick was sitting at the kitchen table, scribbling on a piece of notebook paper. An ashtray and cup of coffee were next to him, dangerously close to the edge of the table. Joe made his way to the fridge, putting his hand on Mick's head as he passed.   
"How's the memoir coming?"  
Mick ignored the jab. "How's Eric?"  
"Eh, he's still a bitch." Joe dug through the fridge before eventually coming up with a bottle of beer.  
"'S not what I meant," Mick said, putting down the pen he was scrawling with.  
Joe sighed, hoisting himself up to take a seat on the counter top. The thought of cops and supes continued to circle in his head.  
"Where're the others?"  
"Paul's in the bedroom. Nick's asleep on the couch. Why?" Even though it was posed as an innocent question, Joe could tell Mick knew this meant nothing good.   
Joe backtracked, sensing Mick's skittishness."It's nothing, really," he fibbed. "Just figured everyone ought to know at once."   
"Alright," Mick said, not totally convinced. Luckily, Mick didn't bring it up and Joe didn't want to talk about it. The two sat in comfortable silence.  
"Have any of your stitches burst yet?" Mick was back to scrawling, not looking up as he posed the question.  
Joe smiled a bit. "Was wondering when you were gonna ask that. Nah, 'm holding together yet, don' worry."   
"Y' sure? You were walking with a limp earlier." Joe found Mick's mother-bird instincts endearing, especially when he pretended to act disinterested like he was doing now.   
"Don't worry about me," Joe repeated. "I can take care of myself."   
Mick scoffed. "'M gonna believe it when I see it." He took a quick drag from his cigarette.   
"B'lieve wot?" Paul slurred, leaning in the doorway with a bag of Cheez-its. Paul didn't sleep very often- no one in the house technically needed to, except Joe- but whenever he did, up he was always out of it for a good few hours upon waking up.   
"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," Mick hummed, downing the last of his coffee and stubbing out his cigarette.  
"If you got any cracker crumbs in my bed, I'll skin you alive," Joe tacked on to Mick's greeting.  
"Good morning to you, too, Mutley," Paul grumbled, elbowing Joe as he walked by. He pulled up a chair next to Mick, shoving a handful of crackers in his mouth. He side-eyed the others in the room. "What's everyone so somber for?" he asked after a beat of silence.   
"'S nothing. Don't worry about it," Joe repeated, mostly reassuring himself. "Let's go into the den, yeah?"  
Paul complained about how he had just sat down or something but Joe wasn't really keen on listening in. As much as he didn't want to worry the others, the sooner he got this over with, the better.   
In the living room, there was a lumpy pile of blankets strewn across half the sofa, seemingly wrapped around nothing. The pile rustled a bit, shifting as though there was a small animal beneath it. Mick kicked the side of the couch rather unceremoniously. A human-esque form took shape from beneath the blankets, and a vaguely translucent head emerged from the cloth lump. "What's your problem?" Nicky muttered, wrapping one of the blankets from his nest over his now-visible but still flickering shoulders.   
"Joe's got a big secret," Paul replied, only half-mocking. He plopped down on the sofa, the tired, old frame squawking. "Move," he requested bluntly, nudging Nicky's hip with his.   
The three, now settled, looked at Joe expectantly. Nicky looked rather miffed at being woken up, Mick eyes darted from Joe to the two on the couch and back again anxiously, and Paul gave the impression he was still a bit confused.  
"Well. Eh..." Joe, despite being rather outspoken and bold under most circumstances, didn't much like making serious proclamations like this. "I met up with-"  
"Spit it out," Nicky said, bluntly but not maliciously.   
"Eric says there's a new kind of cop-force for supes," Joe confessed. "They haven't snagged anyone yet, but he thinks they're set to kill. I don't know how true it is, it's all word of mouth." As soon as he finished his sentence, he stuck a cigarette in his mouth and moved to light it, not eager to stay on the subject for much longer.  
"That's all?" Paul asked, and Mick elbowed him. "Oi! What? The way he was talking about it, I figured someone got mauled or something."  
"They might as well've," Mick replied, running his hand through his hair. "Shit," he exhaled after a beat. "Does he know anything about where they are?"  
Joe shook his head. "Not that I've heard. But he said Vicious got snagged while he was still in here."  
Mick continued to fret. "Vicious is an idiot, but he's not dumb enough to get into trouble outta bounds." He began to pace in a tight line, from one end of the sofa to the other. "They must be coming through here at night, or...or something."   
"Why should we trust Vicious?" Paul offered, in an attempt to alleviate anxiety. "He might be lying, yeah?"  
"Why would he?" Paul sighed. "'M trying to make the best of this."  
"Doesn't matter," Joe muttered around his cigarette. "Point is, we need to be careful. Even more careful than usual. Who knows what they'll do to us if one of us gets snapped up."  
The other three looked a bit forlorn at Joe's words. They knew in this case, "careful" meant that they weren't allowed to go out. When leaving the Cage, Joe was always uncomfortable- he had been since childhood. He was taught that sense of feeling like there was a target on his back, knowing he wasn't welcome in the community of normal people. He hadn't been allowed in playgrounds with the other kids, hadn't been allowed to wander away from his mother at the grocery, had never been allowed to go to school. Since the beginning, he always knew his place was in a Cage, where he wasn't considered a threat and was allowed to live how he was, where he didn't feel the need to blend in.  
The others, however, weren't raised in a Cage, so the comfort Joe felt was lost to them. They were raised as any other child was, integrated in society, before everything changed and they became outcasts overnight. To Joe, the world outside the cage was synonymous with danger, betrayal, and helplessness. To the others, it was nostalgia for a simpler time, before everything went wrong; a taste of normalcy in their lives as freaks.   
"Don't you two still need to get food and all?" ("you two" being Paul and Joe-Mick and Nicky didn't need to eat, and neither did Paul really, as long as he had animal blood he was set for a week or so), Nicky asked, sounding a bit hopeful. Nicky never went out and about anyways, at least not while he was visible, but something like groceries from a name-brand store was the sort of comforting lifeline that sufficed.   
Joe felt like an ass. He hated to be such a buzzkill about the whole thing- when three-fourths of the house was technically dead, the last thing they needed was another reason to be depressed. "Look, I just-" he sighed, releasing a cloud of smoke from his almost-burnt cig, "I don't know yet, alright? I still don't know how true any of this is yet, but it's not worth your heads."  
That seemed to signal the end of the conversation. Mick stopped pacing and plopped down on the arm of the couch. Paul uncrossed his legs. "Anyone want a cuppa?" he offered, sensing the general feeling of defeat that had settled over the group, eager to get away. "Yah, sure," Nicky muttered, wrapping the blanket closer to himself. Paul departed to the kitchen, and Joe took his place on the edge of the couch, lighting another fag after stubbing out the first on the sofa cushion. It was a chain-smoking kind of day.  
"Do the rest know about this yet?" Mick muttered.   
"Word travels fast. I'd be damned if they didn't," Nicky replied, moving to sit cross legged.   
"You'd think there'd be bigger outcry, yeah?" Normally, when something big like this happened, a sort of meetup was called within the Cage, under the radar of course, of how to go about whatever was being held against them now. Typically, these meeting were fairly pointless, ending in small riots where the only roughed up in the end were each other, and were over by morning with little harm done.   
Joe half-scoffed at that. "Yeah, and what are we gonna do? They've got us-" Before Joe could finish his gripe, the door in the kitchen slammed and Paul emerged back into the den. "Somebody's here."  
All four of them looked at each other in semi-terror, and Joe slowly rose to enter the kitchen, the rest in tow.   
In the kitchen stood a tall, slender blonde woman, wearing a trench coat with sunglasses clipped to the front, a bright red beret perched on top of her head. She stood in the cheap-looking kitchen, hands on her hips, looking at the four men expectantly.  
Joe's tension disappeared immediately. "Ray, what the hell are you doing here?"  
The lady suddenly morphed in front of them, losing her slender form in favour of a lanky, pasty man, blonde-yellow hair sticking out from under his beret. "That easy, was it?" he asked, unclipping the sunglasses from his coat and pushing them up the bridge of his nose.  
"Lose the stupid hat. You're not very slick," Joe said, unimpressed. "The hell you doing here?"  
"Well, dear neighbor, I'm not here for a cup of sugar," the shifter hummed, picking up a mug of the tea Paul had made. "Your presences are requested at the Lydon residence tonight." He downed the mug in one go.   
"Don't tell me we're doing another one of those stupid meetings again," Joe grumbled. "What're we gonna do, drive the cops off by killing each other?"  
"It's not my decision. Don't shoot the messenger," Ray replied simply, putting the mug back on the counter top. "Well, if you fellows will excuse me, I'll be off to every other house on the block. Thanks for the tea break, think I needed it." He took off the sunglasses once again and morphed, this time into a large, muscular man with a square-ish head. With that, he departed, the door slamming behind him.  
Paul picked up Ray's mug and tossed it rather carelessly into the sink. "I hate the neighbors," he announced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are appreciated. Next chapter will (hopefully) be uploaded next month.  
> Stay safe and cheers.

**Author's Note:**

> like i said u guys r the best, pls drop a comment or kudos if u liked  
> cheers and stay safe!!


End file.
